


They ask me, "How do you sleep at night, you monster?!" but honestly, I don't. I only got two hours last night. Why do you think I hate everything so much, you bastard?

by emily_420



Category: Gintama
Genre: M/M, mentions of the rest of the kiheitai cause i lov em, takasugi's pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-15
Updated: 2014-12-15
Packaged: 2018-03-01 14:42:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2776874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emily_420/pseuds/emily_420
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'Takasugi took a passive sip of tea as Kamui laughed a little self-depreciatingly. “Man, when I say it out loud it sound really pathetic. Sorry. Just forget about it.”'</p><p> A late-night run-in brings Takasugi and Kamui a little bit closer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	They ask me, "How do you sleep at night, you monster?!" but honestly, I don't. I only got two hours last night. Why do you think I hate everything so much, you bastard?

**Author's Note:**

> i can't believe i turned even takamui into fluff. i'm too powerful. my fluff level is too damn high.
> 
> for some reason i feel like [this song](http://kasutera.tumblr.com/post/64103073480/does-laika-no-yume-translation) fits the mood of this - especially the [translation](http://kasutera.tumblr.com/post/32204483662/translation-does-laika-no-yume)

Indescribable pain singing through his heart, Takasugi chased desperately after the retreating, otherworldly figure of the closest person to a proper parent that he’d ever had; he couldn’t run fast enough, though, and the world faded to black; he woke up with his arm stretched towards the out-of-reach heavens and a cry on his lips. Breathing heavily, he sat up in his futon and moodily kicked his blanket away. This sort of thing wasn’t uncommon – he rarely got a peaceful night of sleep – but nightmares involving Shouyou put him in an even more terrible mood than usual.

A quick glance at the digital clock that Bansai had given him for Christmas told him that it was only one in the morning. He could probably still salvage some sleep before it was time for the day to start, but the dream had left him wide awake. Figuring that he’d feel sleepier if he got a drink and read something, Takasugi got up laboriously and headed for the ship’s kitchen. It was a bit of a walk from his room, but that was okay; the cool air, a result of being quite a way from the nearest solar system, felt good to breathe in, and the cold metal floor under his bare feet was welcome relief from the stifling heat of his futon.

Rounding a corner, Takasugi saw light streaming out of the kitchen’s doorway and was just thinking that he’d have to remind Matako for the third time that month that forgetting to turn lights off when she leaves a room wastes energy when he heard someone clunking around in there. Well, that wasn’t all too unusual, either; Matako was known to get up for a midnight snack, and Bansai would stay up incredibly late writing music every now and then. It wasn’t either of them, though; puttering around in the kitchen was Kamui.

(Their relationship was somewhat abstract – or, at least, Takasugi didn’t really want to define it – but, if pushed, he’d venture that it was something like enemies-with-benefits, although Kamui was dragging him closer and closer to the boundary that denoted friendship ever day. Not that Takasugi was against having friends – he was neutral, there – but he’d had enough of his friends dying, and if Kamui was someone that he was going to fight to the death one day... it was better to keep things uncomplicated.)

Kamui looked up from whatever he was sifting a little wildly, as if he’d been caught in the middle of something incredibly private. There was a careful, guarded look in his eyes – subtle enough that you might not usually notice it, but Takasugi had always been good at reading him – that fell away once he recognised who it was. Tiredly and half-heartedly, Takasugi raised a hand in greeting, padding straight over to the fridge, noting the way Kamui’s gaze lingered on his exposed left eye. This was understandable – Takasugi was rarely seen without his bandages on, not even by Kamui, who saw rather a lot more of him than anyone else.

Since he was feeling a little bit nostalgic – only a little bit, because that was all he allowed himself – Takasugi took some wrapped onigiri from the fridge, setting them down on the bench near whatever Kamui was doing and set about making tea.

“...You want some?” Takasugi asked somewhat belatedly as he got a teapot and cup from one of the cupboards.

“Hm? Sure,” Kamui answered absently, carefully measuring out sugar when Takasugi turned to watch, waiting for the kettle to boil.

“What are you doing, anyway?” Takasugi frowned. “I thought you couldn’t cook?” Couldn’t cook with _heat_ , mostly – there had been an incident when Kamui had been put on the dinner rotation for the first time that ensured that everyone aboard was well aware of the Yato’s shortcomings in the kitchen.

“I can cook this,” Kamui assured him lightly, tipping a small amount of water into the mixture he had in large mixing bowl. Then, more quietly, “It’s the only thing I could never screw up.”

“Is it that easy?” Takasugi asked after a slight pause, a terrible attempt at humour as usual, but Kamui snorted anyway.

“No, nothing like that,” Kamui said calmly, tipping something pink into the mix. “Well... Do you want to know? It’s grossly personal.”

“Why not,” Takasugi shrugged as the kettle went off, agreeing only mostly because he doubted that Kamui would ever feel this much like sharing again, but also slightly so that he could take his mind off the hazy mental image of making onigiri with everyone at Shouka Sonjuku, and how happy he’d been before they’d had everything snatched away.

Kamui hummed as he took his first sip of his tea, then, leaning against the bench and staring at the floor, he said, “These dumplings–“ _so that’s what they are_ , Takasugi thought idly, “were my mother’s favourite food. I sucked at making them at first, but when she got really ill I spent ages getting it right so that she’d have something to smile about.” Takasugi took a passive sip of tea as Kamui laughed a little self-depreciatingly. “Man, when I say it out loud it sound really pathetic. Sorry. Just forget about it.”

He’d begun turning back to cooking when Takasugi spoke, eye on the cold onigiri that was starting to condensate underneath the cling wrap. “It’s not really pathetic or anything. Wanting someone you care about to be happy.”

“Shinsuke?” Kamui turned back to look questioningly at him, watching as Takasugi sat his tea down next to the onigiri and started unwrapping them. “Nah, just... I was like that too, once.” He picked up one of the onigiri, staring at it as brief flashes of his past ran through his head. “You never expect that anything’ll happen to interrupt your current way of life, then...” He huffed a sigh, took a large bite and chewed at it a little vindictively.

“Yeah,” Kamui agreed, eyes lowered thoughtfully. A beat later, he turned back to his dumpling mix, stirring it with a wooden spoon. Seeming satisfied, he dropped to a crouch, opening one of the cupboards under the bench, sticking his head in and rummaging around for something. “Hey,” he called, voice echoing and muffled, and came back out with bamboo steamer baskets, “help me roll them?”

“How long is that gonna take?” Takasugi asked sceptically.

“With two people, less than ten minutes.”

“Alright,” Takasugi allowed, “but you’ve still gotta cook them after that.”

“Well, yeah, that’ll take twenty minutes.”

“That’s friggin’ long. Why are you making something like that at a time like this?”

“Why are you eating cold onigiri when it’s freezing?” Kamui returned, bringing the dough into a ball and splitting it in half. Half-eaten onigiri in one hand, tea in the other, Takasugi glared flatly at him, and Kamui smiled, pleased with himself.

“Anyway,” Kamui continued, “you get about this much–“ here he showed Takasugi a small handful of dough; Takasugi chewed on his onigiri and peered over his shoulder, “–and make a ball. Try to get it as smooth as possible. Then pinch it like this to make the top–” he did so with the fingertips of his right hand, giving it an attractively pointed top. “See? Then just put it in here.” He sat the pink dumpling in the steamer, immediately reaching for more dough, and Takasugi had to say that it really did look like he’d done it a million times.

The last of his onigiri in his mouth, Takasugi dusted his hands somewhat redundantly on the front of his yukata. They worked in silence for a while, steadily filling the steamer baskets; Takasugi messed a few up and had to redo them, but they finished after not too long. Kamui set them up on the stove and set the timer on the oven; Takasugi put the remaining two onigiri back in the fridge and poured himself a new cup of tea, sinking to the floor with it, joints popping in protest. He leant back against the cabinet, eye closed, and sighed.

“You sound like an old man,” Kamui commented lightly, the edge of a laugh in his voice.

“Older than you,” Takasugi shot back tiredly, not missing a beat or opening his eye.

After moving his dirty dishes to the sink, rinsing them out a bit but ultimately leaving them for someone else to wash, Kamui emptied what was left in the teapot into his cup and sat down next to Takasugi. There wasn’t much to do during the wait besides drink their tea – it was clear that neither of them wanted to talk about anything overly serious right then. After a while, Kamui started humming a distinctive tune, not one that Takasugi knew, but it had too much structure to be improvised.

“What’s that?” Takasugi asked, just for the sake of keeping himself awake.

“An old Yato song,” Kamui said softly. “Well, I guess you could also call it a folk story. Everyone hears it at some point as a kid.”

“What’s it about?”

“A bird that can’t fly because it’s afraid of getting drowned in the sky,” he mused. “In the end, the point of it is that if you face something terrifying you can become stronger and freer. Now that I think about it, it’s a very Yato-like story.”

“Sounds like propaganda,” Takasugi commented blithely, sipping his tea.

Kamui chuckled, said, “You could call it that, too.”

After a few moments more silence, Takasugi suggested, “You could sing it.”

“Eh?” Kamui blinked at him, looking far more innocent than he really was. “Shinsuke, you want me to sing?”

“That’s not what I said,” Takasugi grumbled.

Kamui hummed sceptically. “Well, if you want me to, okay.”

Takasugi was about to insist again that _he hadn’t said that_ , but Kamui was clearing his throat, so he clamped his mouth shut.

For some reason, Takasugi hadn’t expected it to not be in Japanese; in any case, he couldn’t make head or tail of the words flowing from Kamui’s lips, even though the sounds weren’t all that much different from Japanese. It was a pretty, slow song with a clear chorus and more upbeat verses – typical, really – but Kamui’s voice made it into a thing of simple beauty. Takasugi listened quietly, and, by the time Kamui’s voice fell away at the end, he’d finished his tea, clutching his rapidly cooling cup for the precious warmth it provided.

“Well, obviously my singing isn’t very good, but–” Kamui started, but was cut off by the timer he’d set beeping insistently. While he checked that the dumplings were cooked – namely stuffing one into his mouth whole – Takasugi thought, _what exactly is this kid’s idea of ‘good’?_

The dumplings were declared perfect for consumption, and Takasugi hoarded two for himself while Kamui scoffed the rest – all thirty-three of them – and chased them down with two glasses of milk.

When they were done, and with his belly full and mind calm, Takasugi yawned and followed Kamui back down the halls toward the bedrooms. Takasugi’s room came before Kamui’s, and when he tried to bid Takasugi goodnight, Takasugi rolled his eye and tugged him into his room with him. It was a cold night, and he needed the company. (Or, at least, that was the lie told himself.)


End file.
